Having to clear out part of my in laws house last week ( South Yorkshire) , I found in one boxful of stuff a couple of 'postcard' albums ,containing a number of used and collected postcards and assorted family postcards. My wife had never seen these before , and was having trouble identifying people and places to those that she knew and I was having problems trying to stop her rushing through them, as they had clearly originally been put into a fairly logical chronlogical order, but some had fallen out of place and others water and damp damaged, such damage extending to the covers , so we will have to try to re-file in some new albums hopefully. Our son is keen to fill in a number of ancestoral blanks too.

Anyway , with finding today some other documents the photos are starting to make some sense.

My mother-in-law's father(Lionel) appears to have collated the albums , mostly of items to do with one of his brothers, his sister+her husband and general contemporary cards.

Lionel , we think , was one (the youngest) of twelve brothers and one sister, and originated from the Dewsbury area of West Yorkshire (tbc), and his initial employment was that of musician ( indeed all the brothers got instruments from their father and as the youngest Lionel got the Drums ). Today we find his 1915 certificate from the War Office that he was medically unfit for military duty - we believe as a child/ young adult he got ' Rheumatic Fever ' which was the main reason for this. His brother-in-law however was quite involved in the military , possibly the RAMC, so what did Lionel do for war effort - beyond playing for/in a number of music-hall bands keeping up morale at home ? I think it was doing thinks like buying War Bonds ( though we have yet to find any ) , and things like the government sold postcards.

Thinking these would be easy to find on the internet , they are not , so I will do some scanning next week when the albums hopefully should arrive in London for a couple of weeks.

I note there are a few more on the well known internet auction sites ( examples will change ) http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/war-bonds , from around £2 to £10 which I guessed was what they were worth ,but I dont think these will be sold out of the family.

Ministry Of Information , Design Number 7

Last edited by Whyperion on 22 Jan 2014, 13:05, edited 1 time in total.

Looking forward to seeing more of these, I bet Tizer will like them as well. This one must be quite an early one, quite a romantic view of the battery as if its' in the corner of a country park. You can imagine these lads taking tea after popping a few off.

Don't forget these are propaganda, are we sure its early as its an A-A gun , were aircraft in (other than photo recon) WW1 right from the start ) Anyone care to identify the chassis , despite Govt requisitioning of (suitable) motor vehicles early in the war , there were more direct orders to manufacturers before and during the war. The radiator tank header looks like a Thornycroft or Leyland, it could be a converted bus ( but most London B types were used for troop movements ( within England , then in Belgium /Northern France ) before some were converted either to mobile (!) rifle firing units - often moved overnight to new positions , or pigeon lofts - for sending back info to England over the course of the war.

I think it would be high up the agenda to shoot down the observation aircraft and the balloons as both were used for spotting shell fall which was fed back for ranging the artillery. Enemy vehicle of war so shoot at it. You can see from how the artist presented the action though how young lads could be easily sucked into volunteering and then just a short step from there into the maelstrom.

I would hazard a guess that the first tank pic will be dated 1918 perhaps. "Tanks" as we know then didn't make an appearance until 1916, and represent the type that one of found it's way to Letcliffe. The second one displayed is a Whippet, a two man (or is it three?)tyhat were more common in the later stages of the war.

Yes, like Panbiker I think that Whippy has found a magnificent set of postcards, and it's so much more rewarding to find them in your own family too. Thanks for sharing the images with us. The coloured artwork in these early postcards is wonderful, so much better than later colour photo cards in my view. And Panbiker's right, they would stir the patriotism and the thirst for excitement in the young lads of the time, even more so when you think how those lads were much less accustomed to cars and vans, let alone modern military hardware. My dad was drawn into the RAF in advance of WW2, in 1938, by the prospect of working on the new aeroplanes that were appearing, the monoplanes with amazing closed cockpits and retracting undercarriage!

Whippy, if you need to get any help with identifying cards and their background don't forget `Picture Postcard Monthly' magazine which I've mentioned several times on OG. An excellent magazine with a very active Letters section. I know it's slower than asking on internet forums but the magazine's readers have lots of experience and knowledge. Good luck with collating it all and I hope there's not too much damage to the cards.

All the photos of the cards so far I hope I have correctly credited to the internet auction sites , where they are going at around £2+ postage. I have discarded the album ours were in due to water etc damage and have currently re-filed in some cheap plastic flip over albums currently on the coffee table in mums lounge. The ones we have appear unused, but also , as can be noticed from the views so far, there is some lack of clarity in the printing, as if either the colours were out of register or they were some kind of attempt at 3D viewing - its possible some come from effectively misprints but there were sold rather than discarded, if any exist in what I would call perfect alignment I would be interested.

It does look as if the cards were cut /guillotined from larger sheets - all the same or one sheet of 12 differing designs ?

Interesting prices on the war bonds, £1 seems reasonable but what significance is 15s 6d ?

Last edited by Whyperion on 14 Feb 2014, 22:00, edited 1 time in total.

WW1 War Bonds were issued in phases before and throughout the duration. Most issues were offered with a discount but this was a maximum of 5% on the face value. The original intention was to make the bonds redeemable at some point after the war. In actuality this never happened and there still remains nearly £2 Billion in unpaid loans held by the treasury. Currently there are no plans to repay these loans.

read the values on the 'plain' side of the postcards. I was hoping to have found some war bonds, I presume they have an ephemera value over their face value ( but prob not as much as £1 note from those days has increased in value ).

List that I can find from the albums.

A.M.Davies & Co , Quality Cards, LondonFrom Material Supplied by the Ministry of Information
Design No. Passed by Censor. Printed in England
1. Tractor With Seige Howitzer
2. The Irresistable Tanks
3. Siege Gun On Railway Mounting ( not in album but I think I have it somewhere loose )
4. Paving The Way For The Guns
5. Heavy Gun Under Camouflage
6. Airship in Convoy Duty
7. Anti-Aircraft Gun In Action
8. Food For The Guns
9. Whippet Tanks In Action (*)
10. Moving Up A 6-Inch Gun (*)
11. British Flying Boats
12. 60 Pounder Moving Up In Support

(*) omit the From Material Supplied by the Ministry of Information

I suppose its not impossible these could be later reproductions , but the general concensus seems to be these are from late 1915.

There have been some good programmes on the BBC TV and Radio covering ( in a reasonably unbiased way ) the events leading up to WW1 and the impact of that war on Britain, Britains , Europe and the World during and subsequent to the conflict/s ( Jeremy Vine on Wednesday I think had the Guardian and others in a rushed potted history of Britain in military conflict continously over the last 100 years ( one year no land force UK service casualities out of that time )

I will have to scan mine as the views from the net wont last, the Food for The Guns is interesting as my Grandmother on my fathers side I understand worked in a former roller skating hall that had been converted to a munitions factory for WW1, I have never really looked into that side of my family , as I knew her for a few years before her death in 1972, and knew the area , if I have time I might research as my dads' tall stories of her family inventing the safety match and the light bulb ( surname May , as in Bryant and , and worked with Swan in the C19th ) is not going to be easy to trace, and her running of the family second hand shop post WW1 for a few years shows that any family money , if any, didn't flow down that side of the family.

The wiki link does not mention War Bonds in the UK context, talking mainly about institutional loans and referring to them as War Loans, Treasury Bills and War Expenditure Certificates.

We have an answer on the 15/6 from an old ebay listing on worthpoint and from http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/119071 . http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/w ... -273904022 which in that context showed a national war savings committee badge. Now , if we look at the postcard reverse between the 15/6 and the £1 are 5 stylised chain links. This gives buy a War Certificate at 15/6 and after 5 years govt would repay £1 , this is the return rate offered of 5.25% compound , which was guaranteed return for five years ( nil additonal return thereafter ). 15/6 is also 31 6d war savings stamps which were issued and stuck on cards.
I wish I had kept the Ship and similar national savings stamps we were sold at primary school in the 1960s.

The American Library of Congress also has the Tank Tour picture from the Scottish War Savings Committe ( explains Committes on reverse of the postcards ) http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003675239/ . The tank tour. Buy national war bonds (£5 to £5000) and war savings certificates 15/6, which they have dated as 1918.

Lovely to see the postcards Whippy, thanks for posting them.
I do wonder how many other people know about these threads, let alone view them? I get the impression that many members only view the Miscellaneous Chat area. They are missing interesting stuff! Would it be better to make the main page (the one with the default URL) the Active Topics list and put the Board Index as a secondary page with a main link from it?

I for one look at them and I notice that the thread has had over 140 hits, so many others are looking too. So as not to hijack the thread on technicalities I will reply to your suggestions a little later Tiz in another thread.

We have not done badly, so far I as can (be bothered to) find, this is the only place on the internet where they have all been gathered together, listed and up as views , and some of the war loan information expressed I hope at bit more clearly than elsewhere. I think the date would be early 1918, unless anyone knows for definate. More page views might come, but overall the site is relatively quiet, that might be an indication more of fewer of the population using 'independent' sites as shopping, telly and large monolith sites take over the internet.

Given the number offered on internet (low) and people whose memories of the time are passing , its not going to be something that is a immediate importance to most people, if we last another 4 years we shall see (+quality over quantity) .